A go-for-it mindset

The culture at Lincoln Pensions was a total change from my previous role. There were only around 20 of us in the firm and the approach was highly entrepreneurial. If you had an interesting business idea, the odds were that within two weeks you’d be having a conversation with the relevant managing directors – and two weeks later, it could be signed off and yours to go and run. That really resonated with me and it reflects my role today leading Cardano’s innovation space.

If you had an interesting business idea, the odds were that within two weeks you’d be having a conversation with relevant managing directors – and two weeks later, it could be signed off

I always believed there was far more we could be doing with technology in pensions – and began laying the groundwork for this in 2019, when we started building our unique database of covenant assessments with a view to train future AI-solutions on it. I also took my own interest in technology further with a data science qualification during the first Covid lockdowns.

Leading the market

We came up with a proof of concept for our first AI product in 2020. The result – Discover – was launched a year ago, using AI to transform the way covenant assessments are provided to smaller schemes or scheme sections. The solution captures Cardano’s ratings methodology built up over many years by our specialist advisors, and can deliver this at scale.

As the Discover project gathered momentum, my own role also evolved. Initially, I was spending around 20% of my time on strategy presentations, creating buy-in, and going to the management board to get the business case signed off and investment secured. Now, with momentum built and a team of developers on board, this balance has changed and most of my time is spent as Product Lead as we develop Discover into a real-time online portal. That way, trustees can easily interact with the reporting data and make covenant decisions as and when information comes in.

Endless potential

It’s very satisfying to be faced with a problem and then solve it. In my advisory work, I find the variety of unique situations and stakeholders across my accounts to be a never ending source of new stimulation. And on the technology side, I’m very excited at the potential of AI to improve efficiency and free up people’s time. My focus now is on exploring how that and other tech applications can support our business more widely.

Beyond all the buzz around large language models such as ChatGPT, the underlying technologies could be put to use in various ways. In helping, for example, to extract valuable information from huge unstructured data sets or from boosting member engagement by presenting information in a more accessible way.

Bringing everyone onside

Much of my focus is on building buy-in and excitement for these applications. Inevitably, there can be resistance to change. You’re trying to define a business case for very new technology when you don’t quite know how well it’s going to work, or what the impact is – even though you know you should be working on them, because the upside could be so big. It’s an interesting challenge!

It feels as though we’re coming to an inflection point in terms of the impact of technology and innovation on the pensions (and wider financial services) space. It’s therefore helpful to have an innovation team, largely unencumbered by the day-to-day, that can capture opportunities such as these when they arise. It will be exciting to see what comes next!